Latest / Bards and Barrels / S2 Ep. 3 - Becoming the Dungeon Master - Part 3

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S2 Ep. 3 - Becoming the Dungeon Master - Part 3 · Bards and Barrels

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Bards and Barrels, the podcast for Dungeons and Dragons players new and old.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Ross Struce, and I'm joined by my friends and co-hosts Brett Miller and Phil Boone.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_02: We'll be exploring the world of Dungeons and Dragons in each episode, sharing our experiences, offering tips and advice for those who play and run this classic game.
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_02: So whether you're a new player just starting out or a seasoned veteran looking to get a new perspective on things, Bards and Barrels has something for everyone.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_02: So sit back, grab a drink, and join us as we roll for initiative and embark on an epic adventure.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_02: And there's the opening crack.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_02: It's time for another episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_02: That was a wimpy crack.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry, it's a tall skinny candy.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Is that like a seltzer or something?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Is it really a beer?
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_01: Judge beer.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Was that a beer?
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_01: I had to improvise.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_01: Judgment.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Oh man.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_02: So here we are once again.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Uh Ross along with along with me for the ride.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, English tonight.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_02: How many beers have you got?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_02: How many beers have I started?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_02: Along with me for the ride today, as always, Phil and Brett.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_02: How are we doing, boys?
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing great.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about you.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_02: I don't know about God.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_02: We're here.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_02: Phil's cutting back and I can't speak.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_02: This is gonna be a great episode.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Everybody just buckle in.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have to have great start.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_02: Alright, so tonight uh we're gonna dump into dump into wow continuing this series here.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna jump into the final part of our DMing series.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh up to this point, we've talked about a lot of things.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_02: We've talked about running a session, we've talked about uh running session zero, uh things that a DM needs.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_02: We've talked about our experiences, we've talked about knowing the rules, we've even talked about that.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need to be Matt Mercer, be your own DM.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_02: You don't need to know everything.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_02: But tonight uh we're gonna kick off with uh playing NPCs, guys.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: So let's let's dive into this topic a little bit.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is a little bit of a touchy one in kind of the DM community, where some people say don't, and some people just go with it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: I think yeah, I would agree with Brett, and I think it it's kind of a divided line, right?
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like I fall into the camp of I'm I fall into the camp of just talking through kind of my PCs, I would say.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: I try to at least approach situations in the way that they would.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I am no voice actor by any means, so do my NPCs all sound exactly the same.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, they do vocally.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: However, I do try to give them different opinions, they would approach things in different ways, the way that they communicate information tends to be different as well.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_01: And I do like them to have like fun personality quirks.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Like Yostix was a blast to play, and I feel like you guys really enjoyed that character, and he was kind of quirky.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I think we should differentiate a little bit just before we get too far into this topic, in the difference between portraying NPCs just in your normal adventure and playing an NPC, like that joining your party as an NPC.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: True.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two different things.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: The portraying person you meet along the street, every DM has to do that.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: I think what I was focusing on, the the controversial side is when you have an NPC join your party and the DM plays that NPC.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely have an opinion on that one, and you both know it because I do this all the time.
• 3:36
  SPEAKER_01: I as a DM I want to play.
• 3:38
  unknown: Yeah.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: So I prefer to have an NPC.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_01: I would never force an NPC on the party if they didn't want it.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_01: Like there is always a choice of hey, someone wants to come with you.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: It's up to you.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_01: You could say no, and it would be fine.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I always try to make that person appealing or like maybe a healer while you're in hell that you possibly could need.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: Filling gaps in the party.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of a DM tool to potentially do that, honestly.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I like to use it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_00: So when you added Yostix, Yosticks is the one that we had in our um dissent to a Vernus campaign.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: Did you have to adjust the challenge rating on anything based on having an additional player in the party?
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, hindsight should have.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um there are probably, I could think kind of of two instances where I probably had Yoestics intervene to a point that he shouldn't have.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um the biggest one I feel like sticks out is when he like misty stepped inside to an infernal war machine and just like took control of it.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: Shouldn't have had him intervene that much.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_01: I overstepped, but I was in the moment.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: He was pretty powerful.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: I I definitely adjusted things like HP, number of attacks, I did some of that.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So that would bump the CR a little bit.
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_02: So so like what would your opinion like focusing on Yosticks?
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_02: So if you if you don't want to make him too OP, because obviously you know what's coming, do you do you run it in such a way that you don't do like your power moves unless the party asks you to do them?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I should have done it, yes.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: Or if it comes to a point where like you're looking at TPK or something like that, like Yosticks is there to intervene.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: But that's how it should have been ran.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: I definitely overstep once or twice.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_02: But I would also at this point say if you're running a character like you faithfully did for a fair amount of that campaign, they're not really an NPC anymore, they're a player character, they're based up on you because you are playing that character, they're no longer just a throwaway or something that's going by the way anymore.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: That's true.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not a throwaway.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, Yo Sticks, uh that when that campaign picks back up, Yo Stix is still going to be somehow intertwined into the story at this point.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: Because he is.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: He's a part of the storyline now.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_02: Which I think leads us to that there's different levels.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_02: Like as a DM, you know, when you walk into a tavern, there's going to be throwaway characters in a tavern that you can make it up on the fly and it's not going to matter.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_02: But then there's also going to be NPCs out there that you need to know what they know, and you need to have those maybe something kind of quirk because they're going to be around and they're going to show back up.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: So you give that those characters a little more depth, and then you have like the crucial cornerstones in a story who are going to be there throughout the entire campaign.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's not uncommon for an NPC to join your party for a period of time.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_01: I actually think that sometimes parties ask for that because they're like, hey, we can maybe get the DMs help.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_01: Do you know what I mean too?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_01: Like on the flip side of that.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: So Yo sticks, what do you know?
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: Like if you can if you can get somebody to join your party that's got like map knowledge or location of where you're going, it helps so much.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: It is funny though, because you think back to that campaign, there was an NPC that the book kind of assigns to you that has some of that, but I feel like that was almost a less, I don't know, consequential like NPC to the party important to the storyline, but kind of less it I don't know, less memorable.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: When you kind of get an NPC forced upon you, it doesn't feel as natural to embrace them into the party.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, agreed.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I think it all comes down to the like where you're at in the story.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_02: Because are you talking about Rhea?
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: Not Raya.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, Lulu.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, Lulu, okay.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, sure.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, so yeah, you're totally right there.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: I was thinking Rhea, because like she just showed up when we were on the boat, and then it's like, oh, she's there, and then all of a sudden, like, we're in the middle of beating the crap out of somebody or something right after we take the ship, and we're like, okay, you just wait a minute, we're gonna deal with this, we'll come back to you in a second.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_02: It was just it was just kind of awkward, but in terms of like Yo sticks was like the opposite, because like we had gotten into the nine hells, and it's like we had made it to um underneath the like the temple and elteral and all that, and then Yo was there as a cleric, and it was like do you need it?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_02: It was like basically do you need help?
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_02: And we were like, Yes, come with us.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so it's like we had a need and he filled the need.
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if that was just a difference in timing and our need at the point at that point.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: Sure.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_02: Potentially, it's also Phil understanding that we needed a cleric.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's part of it, but I also think that I don't believe that you guys blowing up ships or anything like that were necessarily part of the game plan.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_01: So I think Rhea was there first before you decided to do your tomfoolery.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: It happens.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't remember that.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_02: When you cast fireball, see we all remember the bottom of the show.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_02: There's some ambiguity there.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_02: Let's just not worry about that.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, but I think that all the all of this talk is a good segue into our next topic, and that's that's the art of storytelling as a narrator, because NPCs are part of that storytelling too.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_02: So, Brett, you've run one shots, you haven't run like a full campaign yet, although you're working through Lost Minds, right?
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_02: So so simple, easy one.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_02: Even those, what are your guys' thoughts like on how if you're a new DM, how how do you get into that storytelling vibe if you've never done it before?
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: I would say if you're starting with a published campaign, they're gonna have blocks of text for you to read.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would encourage you to try and skim over a little bit of that ahead of time and know enough that you can ramble through it without having to read it directly.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: It provides a lot of immersion when you're not just reading from a page.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Brett's right.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I had I oftentimes fall into the trap of wanting to read it word for word, and it disrupts the flow.
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's easier to read it word for word, but it just it breaks the immersion.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: It does.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_01: It definitely disrupts the flow.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's not your words as DM.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: It's sure you can tell it's from the book.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's I I f I fall into like a weird in-between.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_02: Because there are certain times, particularly in dungeons, where like I will read it verbatim because I don't want to miss anything.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_02: That's why I read it.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_02: Not necessarily that I don't know it or I couldn't come up with something better, but it's like if they're telling you this here, then there's problem.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_02: That's not always the case.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_02: There are rooms where there's there's nothing in here except for a bed and a dresser or whatever, and there's nothing in them.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_02: But there's also times where it's like it will give away very crucial information that you need to know.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_02: And like, I want to make sure as a DM that I'm telling you that stuff too.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I would say if it's something that's like you're reciting what's written on a scroll or something like that, absolutely read word for word.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: You need that level of detail there.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: But I would say, like, if you're going into a dungeon room, some of that stuff you could let depending on what how important it is, you could leave it to the player's player characters to search, figure out what's in there, ask questions before they just venture out.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: Sure.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I think that's where this is gonna kind of go back to the rules a little bit.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_02: That's that's where some of that like passive perception comes into play that I I always forget to use.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like, wait a minute, what's it?
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_02: I exactly.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, yeah, we know what it is, but like I rarely ever use it because I would much rather you be looking for something and I just have you make a perception check that versus the the CR for finding this thing is a 15 and your passing perception is a 17, so you just find this thing.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: That seems too easy to me.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_01: Agreed.
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: And that's yeah, I call for perception checks, especially when there's nothing to perceive.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, so do I think that's a good one?
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_01: Just to make sure, right?
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: Like so that when you do call for it, uh they don't just always know, oh well, that means there's something.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_01: I rolled a NAD 20, you didn't find anything.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: So I I think a very important part of s uh uh of being a DM is remembering that this is a collective storytelling experience.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: So you're either gonna you might be doing a homebrew, more than likely you're probably running a published adventure, but at the end of the day, what's in the book does not necessarily dictate your story.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: You need to be flexible, let your players tell that story, and you're helping them tell that story, and you're like checking but not checking boxes off, but you're ticking off the things as you go.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're in this area, these things are gonna happen.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_02: That's your role as the DM.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_02: And how do you how do you intersperse those things into the story that's being told?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: It's like you've got more of an outline versus having the story already written.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Correct.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like you don't know how they're gonna get there, but you know they've got to get from here to here somehow.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: And the players help you figure that out in real time.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_02: I actually think that is an amazing analogy for this because like view yourself as the author, and you know you need to get from A to B, but everybody else in the room is helping you fill in that gap and get from A to B.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the story that's in a very chaotic manner.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_02: Very chaotic, and it may take five chapters to get where you're going, but that's fine.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_02: That's the fun of it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that's uh that's what typically leads to the most fun campaigns, anyway.
• 13:01
  SPEAKER_01: Because when everyone is participating, when you've written a joint story, instead of just hey, we're following this thing out of the book, everyone has a better time.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Now it can be challenging as a DM, right?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_01: And if you have a bunch of stuff prepared and they go in a door you didn't expect, or you know, something along those lines, yeah, it don't get frustrated, right?
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_01: Even if you have to somehow reroute, if that's a pivotal thing they missed, you know, find a way to work it back in.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe they get through this next room and the door they open suddenly opens up into the area they were supposed to go, right?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_01: There are workarounds if you really have something pivotal that you need to accomplish.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, the players don't know your story.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: You can adjust what where it's gonna go.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: And I and I think that goes back to what when we were talking about prepping, how we were like, you know, don't read through everything and do it verbatim.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: It's it's like, you know, allow yourself the ability so when they do something, you just kind of go with the flow to do it, and then you just tie it back together, tie up the loose ends.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_02: That's your job as the narrator.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the other part of storytelling is uh a major difference between when you're running a homebrewed campaign versus a published adventure.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_00: Those are two very different mechanisms for portraying that story.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I know uh last, I think it was last session, we touched a little bit too on how the beginning of the Dungeon Masters Guide has all of this information on building your own world.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it is intimidating, but if you are interested in running a homebrew campaign, you want it to be your story, there is some good resources in the book for that.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I know last time we all got together too, Brett was talking about trying to maybe put together a homebrew campaign that's based in like modern day as well, which would look totally different than you know anything you're gonna find, at least in a you know, DD Wizards of the Coast published adventure.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I you know I encourage people to lean into some of that homebrew piece of it.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_01: That might be a little bit more work for you, but it also gives you the freedom to change your story whenever you want.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: And the characters have no idea, they'll have never played it before.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_02: I think that's a great segue into our next topic.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like you you mentioned Phil using the dungeon master's guide and the world building features that are in there that we feel are completely out of place, but uh what what are some of the tools and resources that you need as a DM to be an effective DM?
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, first and foremost, the ones we've already touched on.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: The the core DD books.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: So like your your player's handbook, your dungeon master's guide, your monsters manual, those are obviously the key resources to get you immersed into the core game.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: But then from there, there's so many different things that you can go down.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_01: I I personally have a couple favorites that I like to use.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So if it is like homebrew campaign type or um even just trying to put maybe something together for a one-shot, Sly for Sly Flourish has a book out that's called Return of the Lazy Dungeon Master, and it can kind of help you outline that campaign.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: There's also some tips in there about you know not over-prepping, just prepping the things that are adding to your campaign and not spending time on some of those details that don't really bring anything into the campaign.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: So I learned a lot from that book.
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that's one I definitely recommend.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_01: And then one of the things that I've found most beneficial, if you're really interested in the combat portion of DMing, you want to run monsters the way they're meant to be ran.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, Keith Ammon has a couple books out now at this point.
• 16:29
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, they're in a series of the monsters know what they're doing, and it truthfully is like combat tactics for you to be able to run the monsters in a campaign.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the first examples in this book is from Lost Minds, and it's running the goblins at the very beginning of that campaign.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And after I read it, it was like like life-changing, honestly.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, oh my gosh, like I've never I've never ran goblins correctly in my entire life as a DM ever.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_01: So that's another one of my favorites.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, another one that I like to use is um for me, Google Drive.
• 17:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some people use Google or OneNote, Microsoft OneNote, but just having a central place to collect all of your notes on a campaign, details about NPCs, a generic list of names to pull from, or bar names, tavern names, whatever, you can collect all that stuff in one central hub and then quickly search through it during a session and pull one of those things out.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_02: I think don't underestimate TND Beyond.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_02: Um your ability to see other players' character sheets.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_02: So as you're playing, especially if you're a new party, like being able to like, if they're trying to do something, you can quickly glance at it and hopefully help them along.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or if you need those passive perceptions, you can hop in and find their passive perception.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_02: Um a lot of DM screens actually have areas where you can put like the basic character information of your party, so you can you can see that at a quick glance.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_02: It's also gonna have a uh a bunch of other information there.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I I would also add then a DM screen would be good too if you're playing in person because that also has all that information at your fingertips and allows you to use those.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_00: And there are tons of different DM screen options.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: You can have ones that have pre-printed stuff that give you all of your cheat cheat information right there, or you can customize your own and just have slips of paper slipped in for details on your different players that are coming to the table, or your NPC or your monsters that you're gonna be facing that week.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: There are lots of just kind of online resources too for you know maps.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking for maps out there, like Dyson Logos makes a ton of great maps.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um, there's several other creators out there too that they have blogs.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_01: So if you just go looking for it.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_01: Map generators too.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Fantasy name generators as well.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just trying to find random weird names.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: There's also the uh who the fuck's my DD character.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you're looking to like really spice up what you're doing as well, it's great for one-shots.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_01: We've used that for some of our one-shots.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_01: What else is out there?
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: There's an audible gasp when he swore.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_02: We can still maintain our PG rating, I promise.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then of just of course running things off of Discord.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can collect and have your players it pool all their information there.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a central hub for your campaign, um, which is another way to stay organized as a as a party.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, if you're meeting in person, um yeah, you might get there's there's gonna be some chuckles with this one, but beer and snacks, do not underestimate like comfort of your party.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's gonna keep help people from getting up and wandering around.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_02: If you have everything at the table, everybody's got their their phone with DDB on it, or they got their player sheet, you got your snacks and your drinks there.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_02: You're just setting yourself up for a good storytelling experience, like that environment to do that.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't have to provide it all.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: You can assign somebody to bring it that week or something.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're the dungeon master.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: You made the game, they can bring the snacks.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh, so let's let's move on to um talking about some cool things that as a DM you can add to your game later.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_02: Leveling up.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, leveling up your play, yes.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, I thought you meant letting your characters level up in the party.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_02: That's a cool thing to do.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_02: Like you're calling me out.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're due.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_02: Can we can we level up yet, Phil?
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: Can we level up now?
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_02: No.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Can we level up now?
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yes! Um, but what but kind of what we're talking about is expanding beyond just like the basic theater of the mind gameplay.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_02: So how can you make your game better, fellas?
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: Having a shared screen.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: If you're in person just putting it up on a TV or something and having a map up there potentially, or even potentially putting the map or the TV on the table and putting minis directly on the table or on the TV, that is a great way to immerse the players beyond just theater of the mind.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, or or if you you know want the traditional like paper mat or not necessarily paper, but some sort of a map actually on the table itself in real minis, something like that, just to give you that visualization, to be able to say, hey, what is 30 feet, what is 60 feet, what's 120 feet, what's in between me and this target, getting actually getting able oh my gosh, now you've given it to me, Ross.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so so sorry.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_01: Being able to actually visualize what those paths look like.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I I just think that does bring another element to the game as well.
• 21:20
  SPEAKER_00: During COVID, Ross and I went down a rabbit hole of creating our own dungeon dungeon terrain.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_02: Which look excellent, by the way.
• 21:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so like just taking XPS foam and carving tiles into them and then playing on top of those.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: That was a good time.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: I enjoyed doing that when you do that.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty fun.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: Why have we been why haven't we used any of this?
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, it's almost like so.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't know when you're listening to this right now, but it's almost winter time when we're recording this, and I think we need to build Strahd's castle.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_02: You had mentioned that.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_02: I think we need to do it.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_02: We need to do it.
• 21:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, one of the things that that I have been trying to mix more and more into my games, and then and this kind of goes back to like my storytelling ability is incorporating music to kind of set the tone.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_02: Because words take you so far, but they don't always add that edginess, right?
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_02: So for example, w uh the three of us were playing are playing Curse of Strahd and uh I I usually have some sort of like if we're we're in a dungeon or something, there's some tense kind of music playing in the background.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_02: And then these guys came up against the um oh I can't even the mound in at the beginning of the death house in the basement of the death house.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_02: But then I I kind of randomly found like monster growls and roars and it was like everybody was like visibly on edge when that was played and this thing was like chasing you around and you were fighting it.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like it changed the whole feeling of that session.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_02: And I thought that was an excellent way to just set the mood.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I think that's one of the easiest things to add is because you can go onto YouTube or wherever you have music and just search for ambiance.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_00: And you can get a hours long track that you can just play over that whole session and just let it go.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you change it from indoor to outdoor at some point during that session but don't go overboard.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: Just do a background audio.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_02: And I think you know going back to season one when we're talking about players and role playing adding those little touches just gets people in the right mindset to be their character in the moment that they're in.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: So it's like a if you're in a forest you know have like a breeze like some ambiance with a breeze and some birds chirping and stuff like that.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: That just sets that feeling for that.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's like trying to hit more senses.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: So even if you go beyond that um if you have color changing lights you can do that or put candles in your room if you're in a dungeon like smoke machine.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Smoke oh there's so many cool things you can do just be creative.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever it's called you know how can you immerse your players into where they're going.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah absolutely and I think so I I've done a little bit of lights too so I actually have some well when we play Curse of Strahd which is in a different room where we're at uh I have like some LED lights that are like up around some bookshelves and stuff.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: So it's hard to see where it's at but the one night you guys came over I had the music playing and I had the lightning going.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: So it was like it was just like the Strahd ambiance that you can find on YouTube and that lightning going I thought that was pretty cool set the tone for the night I loved it.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: I thought it was great.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_02: Any final thoughts on DMing as a whole we've done three episodes on this now guys uh what do you what would you say to folks who want to get into DMing?
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um I would say we've touched on this quite a bit but just you've got to start um once you start there is an entire rabbit hole to go down.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And if you start searching on uh pretty much anywhere Instagram Facebook Pinterest wherever you want to search there are resources that you can find of other people that are sharing DM tips.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: We're all in this together and we're all adapting and evolving our craft over time.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah and really just kind of echoing what Brett said but you're not in it alone and I think that's what you need to know.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_01: So take the dive rely on your player characters to help you I mean they're part of the storytelling experience and know that there are resources everywhere.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: And you know there's Facebook groups and Reddit posts too of when DMs come up against a problem and they want another DM's help.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: So for sure feel free to ask like hey my party's going up against this I don't know what to do here.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: What do you guys think?
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: And the pool of people responding to those questions is so valuable.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Uh I agree with everything you guys said but I'm gonna I'm gonna go a little deeper like once once you've made the jump into being d it being ADM and you're trying to expand up uh your your skills beyond just the basic stuff and just game running uh Phil you mentioned the uh the monsters know what they're doing book and I would say if you're gonna invest in something fairly quickly that book or at least understanding monsters and how they would react to things is a good step to take because I think one of the things we're talking a lot about setting setting the tone you know laying the groundwork for the story is that all too often monsters don't feel real to a party because they're too easy to beat or whatever.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_02: So if there's one thing you can do to add that sense of danger and that sense of this is real to things is have real threats in your party.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_02: So if you're gonna the if if I'm gonna make a suggestion on the first thing that you could expand on it's gonna be learning how to really utilize those monsters and be a threat to your party not not a threat in as in I'm gonna try to kill them every time but just a threat as in to add that danger.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_02: But you could but you could and it's so delicious.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: Just one or two not all of them all right uh that's going to do it for this episode of Bards and Barrels.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you can listen to past episodes of the show anywhere podcast can be found.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_02: Want to stay in the loop and not miss the latest from us be sure to head over and give us a like and a follow on Instagram and Facebook at Bards and Barrels.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_02: We'll see you soon